Christian B&B owners ordered to pay gay couple $4,500 in damages
GRAND FORKS, British Columbia, July 19, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Christian owners of a bed and breakfast in British Columbia have been ordered to pay around $4,500 in damages after they refused to rent a room to a homosexual couple.
Brian Thomas and Shaun Eadie had reserved a room at the Riverbend B&B in Grand Forks in June 2009, but owners Les and Susan Molnar cancelled the reservation after realizing they were homosexual. Was this another sting like Stonewall in the UK? Most likely!
Shaun Eadie and Brian Thomas
“To allow a gay couple to share a bed in my Christian home would violate my Christian beliefs and would cause me and my wife great distress,” Lee explained in tribunal documents.
Thomas and Eadie filed a complaint with the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal, which ruled in their favour on Tuesday. Tribunal member Enid Marion ordered the Molnars to “cease and desist the discriminatory conduct,” though they closed the B&B down in September 2009 as a result of the incident.
Marion agreed with the two men that the Molnars violated section 8 of the B.C. Human Rights Code, which states that it is a discriminatory practice to “deny to a person or class of persons any accommodation” because of “sexual orientation.”
He ordered them to pay each man $1,500 for damages to “dignity, feelings and self-respect,” in addition to their travel expenses and lost wages for the tribunal proceedings.
“Having entered into the commercial sphere, the Molnars, like other business people, were required to comply with the laws of the province ... that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation,” wrote Marion. Would you pay?
